Hey tweets, I managed to get down to the Fill late this morning, after
several days' absence due to family obligations, and it was a brand-
new place. At least, it seemed so to me, like seeing an old friend
after years of absence (each day not at the Fill being roughly
equivalent to a year in pedestrian-world time). After such a long
absence, you recognize your friend, but you notice a few new wrinkles
here, an added hitch in the gallop there, maybe a little more in the
middle, a little less on the top. But still your beloved friend.

I was greeted by a circus of Vaux's Swifts wheeling around the alder
grove and over Paulson Prairie in numbers too many to count. On the
Main Pond, a Solitary Sandpiper poked around in the superb mud,
solitarily. Overhead, four (4, quatro, FOUR) PURPLE MARTINS foraged
for insects. One was a glossy purple male, the others were noisy
juveniles (or yakking females, it was hard to tell). At one point,
they perched all together on top of one of the baseball diamond light
standards. When an Osprey flew up and perched on another, the younger
martins decided to make an issue of its presence and started dive-
bombing the poor Osprey. Martins, it turns out, make substantial dive
bombers but Ospreys make superber squatters. The Osprey just hunched
itself down into a compact-sized lump o' bird and weathered the martin
storm. Eventually the martins gave up, and the little flock sped over
to the lake, where they passed in review for some time.

The best bird of the day for me, however, was the SORA on the Lagoon.
I was sitting on my camp stool along the service road, when a young
Sora popped out of the cattails and began to forage nearly at my feet.
Actually, it wasn't really foraging. It spent more time looking around
for possible enemies than it did looking around for food. It was so
close I couldn't use my binoculars, and yet I still saw every feather,
every toe, every eye blink. It was a delicate piece of perfection,
with a twitching little bobbed tail, and flanks that poofed out or
squinched in, depending on the width of its path through the plants. I
don't know if it realized I was even there. I sat stone still, even
though I felt a cough trying to rise to the surface, as it were. My
face probably turned purple with effort, but by golly, I stayed silent
until the bird finally flew (!) to the other side of the Lagoon and
disappeared. What a breath-releasing experience.

Also on view today: Yellow Warblers everywhere, Orange-crowned too;
Pacific Slope Flycatcher at Main Pond; Cinnamon Teals still on the
Lagoon, along with ever-increasing numbers of Green-winged Teals;
Virginia Rail on the Cove. - Connie, Seattle

constancesidles at gmail.com
www.constancypress.com
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